Ľubomír Ftáčnik

Ftacnik in action

Lubomir Ftacnik (born Bratislava October 30, 1957) is a Slovak chess player and a former European Junior Champion.

He became European Junior Champion in 1976/77 and was awarded the International Master title shortly after. In 1980, he received the International Grandmaster title and this heralded the start of a successful playing career in national and international competitions.

In his native Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) he became national champion in 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1985. At Cienfuegos 1980, Dortmund 1981 and Lugano 1988, he shared first place. There have been many outright first finishes, including Esbjerg 1982, Trnava 1983, Alltensteig 1987, Baden-Baden Open 1987 and the Parkroyal Surfers (Australia) 2000. At Hradec Kralove in 1981, he finished in second place. In 1987 he drew a match with Kiril Georgiev, the strong Bulgarian grandmaster..

At the Chess Olympiad, he has represented first Czechoslovakia and then Slovakia from 1980 onwards, missing out only in 1998. His major triumph occurred in 1982, when an admirable 67.9% score helped the Czechs win the silver medal, very much against expectation. Oddly, his brilliant performance with the black pieces totally overshadowed his results with white, an unusual outcome at such a high level.

In recent years he has spent more time travelling abroad and is an occasional visitor to the USA, where he has attended chess summer camps, promoted his book (Winning The Won Game - co-authored with Danny Kopec) and played in tournaments. In 2006, he finished joint first at the Las Vegas National Open and followed up with an outright win at the South Carolina Open.

He also played the Amsterdam 2006 event and finished a creditable half point off the leaders, in what was a very strong field (Tiviakov, Timman, Nijboer, Tukmakov among others).